Microsoft Stands Up Xbox Labs to Chase AI Game Ports

Microsoft is putting a formal name on the chaos. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma told staff today she is standing up Xbox Labs, a small group of game makers, engineers, and scientists whose job is to turn AI-assisted game decompiles into things players can try.

Her memo, published by The Verge, points at the experiments lighting up timelines: Windows builds on Apple Silicon, Halo in a browser over WebAssembly and WebGPU, and big franchises remixed into each other's source. Sharma says those projects challenge "the tether between software and hardware," and that the player outcomes are "unmistakably good" even when they poke existing business models. Labs will build in the open and share tools with other developers.

She also pitches games as the next agent workload after coding, citing more than 72 billion hours a year spent on Xbox titles. No ship date. When The Verge asked about unauthorized Xbox IP, Microsoft did not respond in time for publication.

— via The Verge.